Kobe Bryant: Snoop Dogg Credits His Mother for Convincing Him to Apologize to Gayle King

Snoop Dogg recently sat down with the ladies of Red Table Talk, and credited his mother for convincing him to apologize to Gayle King, after he criticized her for her line of questioning regarding Kobe Bryant‘s legacy. Speaking about when his mother, Beverly Tate, intervened, Snoop said, “My mother raised me in church and she raised me to respect women. It was certain things she said to me that took me back to being a little kid. And when your mama can make you feel like a kid, that’s when you gotta get right.”

Snoop then continued, “I didn’t feel grown, I didn’t feel like I was Snoop Dogg the rapper, I felt like Snoopy. I felt like, ‘OK, all right.’ And she didn’t say I was wrong, she was just giving me, ‘You know I raised you better. You’re a representation of us. Every woman that has ever crossed your life, you’re a representation of that.’”

On Jan. 26, Bryant was killed in a tragic helicopter crash that also claimed the life of his 13-year-old daughter, as well as seven other individuals. Days later, King sat down for an interview with WNBA star Lisa Leslie — who was good friends with Bryant — and during the conversations she asked about Bryant’s legacy in the wake of past sexual assault allegations.

Snoop quickly took to social media to criticize King for her pressing questions about Bryant, which he took as disrespectful to Bryant’s family in the wake his recent death. This led to many others to begin criticizing King as well, and eventually, according to Snoop, things got out of hand.

“You would think it was more people against me, there was more people with me,” he said, adding, “It made me feel like I had too much power. And at that particular time, I was abusing it. That’s just what I felt, and I had to get it right.”

He went on to say that he had not spoken to King directly, but that he had issued a public apology to her, and that he has “reached out through her friends, her associates and I even DM’d her, sending her a prayer, letting her know I apologize to her.”

For her part, King has accepted Snoop’s apology, issuing a previous statement that read “I accept the apology and understand the raw emotions caused by this tragic loss.”